''lichtung'' is a poem of Austrian author

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry Inf ...

, which combines deliberations about the directions left and right with a change of the letters l and r, so resulting in "lechts und rinks" instead of "rechts und links". It was published in Jandl's first volume of poems, ''Laut and Luise'' (another pun, on loud "sound" and Luise, a female name sounding like "leise", quiet), in 1966 and, while it consists of just one stanza, it is among the most cited of Jandl's poetry.

Content

The l and r replacement happens in each sentence, as applicable, so not in the first one ("manche meinen"). As the German language is so engrained in Ernst Jandl's poems that they are nearly impossible to translate, English authors have tried to transfer the approach in various adaptations, from close imitations to freewheeling versions that continue Jandl's thinking into other semantic areas.

Reception

Hans Helmut Hiebel saw the poem as the basis for Jandl's receiving the Georg-Büchner-Preis in 1984. It is a mainstay of 20th century lyrics.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...

included it in his Kanon der deutschen Literatur and his personal list of 100 essential poems.

Hermann Korte Hermann Korte (11 January 1949 - 21 January 2020) was a German academic specialising in German literature, language and linguistics.die tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, “The Daily Newspaper”), is counted as being one of modern Germany's most important newspapers and amongst the top seven. taz is stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a cooperative-own ...

'' exchanged all ''l''s and ''r''s in their 1 August 1990 title.Klaus Siblewski: ''a komma punkt ernst jandl. Ein Leben in Texten und Bildern''. Luchterhand, München 2000, , S. 179, Abdruck der Titelseite auf S. 178.

References

External links

* Andreas Erb.
Ernst Jandl: lichtung
(

RTF RTF may refer to: Organisations * African Union Regional Task Force, the military operation of the RCI-LRA, 2011–2018. * Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, a broadcaster in France, 1949–1964 * Russian Tennis Federation, the national gover ...

; 56 kB) part of
Vom Nullpunkt zur Wende
',

Universität Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen (german: link=no, Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:lichtung Austrian poems Humorous poems 1966 poems

Content

Reception

Further reading (in German)

References

External links